NCIS
by crusadesadisguise
Summary: The classic show with all the same characters, and a new one. Casey Grace, who has a dark, secret past before NCIS. Not even Gibbs will see it coming...
1. Chapter 1: First Loss

Fear. Pain. Anger. My life has been filled with all three, and more. But I suppose that's the same for everybody. Mine just had a little bit more than usual.

But I shouldn't focus on that. I should focus on the good things. My family. But of course, fear, pain and anger found their way into that too.

My mother and father were deeply in love. My mother was kind, but fiery. My father was the same.

My mother had bright, shoulder-length, red hair that she always had in a messy ponytail, big green eyes, and pale skin. She was slender and youthful.

My father had brown hair, a knowing smile, and blue, probing eyes. He was in the navy. He was a marine sniper, a deadly shot. He also could kill someone with his bare hands. When he entered the marines, he was trained in defence, and fighting. He found that he excelled at it, and realised I would have to learn as well. So I was three when I was signed up for every Martial Arts and fighting class there was available. I was even better than him. I was five years old when I learnt to kill with my bare hands. By the time I was eight I was deadly.

But I wasn't infallible.

I had always known myself in the same image. I had no qualms about how I looked. I never had. I'd never seen why I should. I knew that I was considered quite pretty, but I didn't know anything more than that at the time. I had long, wavy blonde hair, a long, thin nose, large, bright red lips, and my eyes... my eyes were perhaps my favourite thing about myself. They were large, and green. But they had a teardrop pattern circling the pupil, like a ring of water. The teardrops were blue. I had long, thick, black eyelashes.

My birthday had always been an important occasion in our family. I was an only child, and my birthday was really a celebration of the day our family became whole. My birthday has since become the day I hate most.

On my eighth birthday I skipped down the stairs of our house, ready to be greeted by birthday cake and ice-cream for breakfast, my mother and father drinking coffee, smiling warmly at me. A stack of presents by the door, ready to be opened. Laughing as I impatiently rip open the wrapping paper rather of trying to be neat and save it.

Instead I found a sight I hadn't seen for six months, my father in his Marine service gear, carrying suitcases.

My mother had tears in her bright, blue eyes, and didn't see me on the middle of the staircase. "Jethro, can't you wait another day? It's Kelly's birthday. She'll be heartbroken."

My father held her in his arms. "I wish I could. But orders are orders. I can't disobey."

"We're a family. I know your men are your brothers, but she is your daughter. Doesn't that count for something?" My mother pleaded.

My father placed his hands on her shoulders. "I know. I have no choice, Shannon!"

"Tell Kelly that." She said angrily.

"There's no need, Mommy." I said shakily. Tears were escaping out of my eyes. "I heard everything."

"Kel," My father began using my nickname. "I have to go. It's my duty."

"No daddy. No. Not again."

"Kel..."

I looked at him through tear-blurred eyes. He walked away from my mother and came over to me, and tried to hug me. I refused, and just kept saying 'no'. Someone outside honked a car-horn impatiently. He faced it and then turned back to me sadly. "It's time."

He carried his things out and placed them on the camouflaged truck. He turned and stood at the foot of the driveway, and I had walked down with him. He bent down on one knee so that his face was just slightly below mine.

"Should I sing the special song before I go?" he asked softly.

By this time tears were streaming down my face. "Yes."

"Hush little baby, don't say a word

Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird don't sing

Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring"

I hugged him and cried harder than ever.

"Daddy, don't go. Please don't go. Don't go, Daddy." I begged him.

"I love you, Kel, I always will."

He turned to my mother. "We'll promise what we always do." My mother said softly as they hugged. They looked deep into each other's eyes.

My father started. "I will return."

"I'll be here when you return." My mother promised quietly.

She never would realise just how wrong she was.

So we stood at the foot of the driveway, and watched Leroy Jethro Gibbs leave. For the last time.

******************

A month earlier my mother had witnessed a Mexican gang member shooting a Marine. She had identified him successfully, so she had the Naval Investigation Service as protection, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation kept trying to take over their investigation.

Unfortunately the gang member escaped. And he knew what my mother looked like.

We were travelling to school one day when we heard a sudden crack in the windshield of our car. There was a bullet hole in the front. I looked to the front seat. There was blood dripping down the side of the drivers head rest. There was a bullet hole in the head of the NIS Special Agent driving the car.

I looked to my mother in fear. "I love you!" she said, calm yet regretful.

"I love you too, Mommy." I said.

I was about to die. The car swerved towards a brick wall on the side of the highway. My mother undid her seatbelt, and launched herself in front of me.

Everything went black

******************

I felt pain. And a distant knowledge something bad had happened. If I woke up, it would be bad. There would be nobody left for me. My head hurt. My leg hurt a lot. And my stomach. I opened one eye. "Mommy? Mommy, are you okay?"

There was no reply. "Mommy?"

I opened my other eye. I looked slightly to my right. The passenger door was open. I saw a weaselly face looking in at us. He was wearing an FBI bullet proof vest.

"Is my mommy okay?" I asked him timidly. My words were slurred by the pain.

"I'm sorry, kid." He said regretfully. "And there's something else..." As he trailed off, I knew there was something very, very wrong. I already knew that I no longer had a mother. What could be worse? "You're father was killed this morning by a bomb in Panama."

That. That could be worse.


	2. Chapter 2: Renamed

I was removed from the car, in both physical and emotional agony. The FBI Agent informed me that his name was Fornell. He was intense and single-minded. I had the feeling he was attempting to be nice to me, but I could already tell that we were not going to get along.

I got to hospital, and discovered that I had 2 broken ribs, a broken leg, and a concussion. It was a miracle I wasn't more severely injured. My mother was an angel that brought that miracle, but I couldn't shake the feeling of uncontrollable guilt burning it's way through my chest. The pain was eating me from the inside out.

The knowledge that I was never going to see my parents smile at me again, laugh at my hyperactivity, and complain about how grumpy I was in the morning, was too much for me to take. I didn't want to feel or know. I just wanted to disappear with them, and I wished my mommy hadn't sacrificed herself for me. It would be better if I had died. We'd all be a family up in heaven.

But we couldn't. Because they'd abandoned me here.

I needed Maddy. I needed my best friend. But I could tell from the look on Special Agent Fornell's face that there was no chance of me seeing her today.

_Or ever?_

I snuffed out the little voice in my head. I was going to see her. She was going to be there for me. She'd cry with me, and be there for me, and we would work through it together.

I had to.

******************

I stayed in hospital for two weeks. I cried every day.

It had been made blatantly clear to me that seeing Maddy was not an option, "now or in the foreseeable future." Every day I hated Fornell a little bit more. I had convinced myself it was _his _fault my mommy was dead. _He _had not worked hard enough to protect her. It was his fault, and the FBI's fault.

I was told that I had been placed in witness protection. I asked to see my family, my grandpa, my friends. But I was refused. The Agents who babysitted me didn't answer any questions without Fornell's authorisation. It disgusted me how obedient they were to him.

I could see pity, and empathy in a few of the Agent's eyes, but in a flash it would be gone, and they would return to the cold, emotionless exterior they upheld. All I knew was that after I left the hospital, I wasn't in one place for more than a week. I was moved around constantly, told that they had to protect me from the man who killed my mother, as they weren't sure if he knew I was alive.

But no matter what, I always got the feeling that there was something they weren't telling me. The way they kept up my martial arts training, shoving me into everything as soon as they got the all-clear from the doctors, made me suspicious. I repeatedly asked myself why they would want me to train more. But I had no answer.

I did, however, know that I was going to escape from the 'witness protection'. It felt more like a prison. Just because you couldn't see the bars, didn't make them any less real. Planning my escape, thinking of my freedom, it kept my sanity. I think I lived on it.

And finally, six months after my parents deaths, long after the tears had ceased because they could no longer express my pain, I did it.

That week we lived in a shabby little apartment, with stains of I didn't even want to _know_ what on the floors and walls. It was perfect. All I had to do was wait until the hour of time Fornell had to report in on 'the assignment', aka, me.

I had stashed a backpack underneath the rickety wooden frame and hard, moth-eaten mattress that currently passed for my bed. Inside were a few changes of clothing, the silver locket my father had given me, and money I had stolen from careless FBI agents wallets over the past months. Nothing else. I would take only necessities.

I waited in the boxy living area of the crappy apartment for Fornell to be called to take the video conference on his computer. I casually walked into my room, and shut the door behind me. I quickly moved over to the barred windows and removed the loose one I had discovered exactly 5 minutes after we arrived. Now the space was big enough to shimmy through. I had already realised there was a ledge down the side, and from there I could quietly jump down to the ground.

I threw my backpack over my shoulder and proceeded to do just that. And then I ran like hell.

As I left behind my protection, I left behind my past.

******************

Eight years passed. I was sixteen years old, and I was alone. I had never seen Maddy. I had never visited my parents graves. I had, however, read in the paper of the tragic 'accident' that claimed the life of Shannon and Kelly Gibbs.

So apparently I was legally dead. And with that realisation, I realised that Kelly Gibbs _was_ dead. I wasn't Kelly anymore. I made myself a new name. I needed a name that had nothing to do with my family. So when I saw the name Haley Mace in a newspaper, I changed it slightly, and knew that from that point on I would be Casey Grace.

I had been travelling all around America since my escape. I always moved after a month of the same place. There'd never been any reason to stay. Boys had asked me out, of course, time and time again. I had refused every single one. They had all been the same; desperate and self-impressed. All thinking that I would be _dying _to go out on a date with them.

They were kidding themselves.

I found myself walking into a new school in Florida, and as per usual everyone stared at the new kid as if she was a shiny, new toy. I just wanted to get through my first day alive. So it irritated me when I stopped by my new locker, and saw a tall, over-muscled boy walking towards me with his eyes fixed on me, but too far down to be directed at my face. He leaned nonchalantly against the locker beside mine.

"Hey" he said, attempting to sound cool and at ease. "I'm Jase. What's you're name?"

I glanced up at his well-made features, and saw his shallow thoughts in his eyes. "Casey."

" So you're new huh?"

"What gave me away?" I asked sarcastically.

"Well, I haven't seen you around before," he answered, completely serious.

I turned away from packing my locker for a moment to give him a look which clearly questioned his mental capacity. I proceeded to ignore him, and yet he didn't realise my distaste.

"So do you, uh, need any help finding your way around?" he offered suggestively.

"No, thank you. By the looks of it my sense of direction in itself would be a better guide than you." I said rudely. I wanted him to leave me alone. No point giving him false hope.

"What gives you that idea?" He asked, desperately trying to get me to find some attraction to him.

I faced him for a second. "My face is up here." I said bluntly.

He didn't have the decency to blush, but rather he had the audacity to wink at me. I rolled my eyes. He then started moving closer to me, and lifted a hand to rub my arm. I looked at his hand, and then his face. He was smiling with sickening self-assurance.

"Get your hands off me _now_, or you'll end up facedown on the floor with serious head injuries." I said with barely concealed anger.

"Whoa, no need to be so tense. Need me to loosen you up?" he replied. This boy was idiotic beyond belief.

I decided to be honest with him. "Listen hard here, and get this through your thick skull. I do NOT want anything at all to do with you. I want you to leave me alone. And if you don't, I will make sure that you end up in a hospital bed."

He grabbed my arms hard, and pressed me against the lockers. I saw an animal glint in his eye, and realised that Jase was the type of boy who would not hesitate to hurt a girl.

Unfortunately for him, I was the type of girl that wouldn't hesitate to kick his ass.

He leaned forward and tried to shove his mouth on mine. My arms were aching with the force of his grasp, and I knew I'd have bruises. That made me even more furious than his disgusting comments. So I thrust my knee into his crotch, and as he doubled over in agony, I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back so that he was trapped in an arm-lock.

"Don't you _ever_ try that again, do you understand?" I hissed. He merely moaned. I pulled his arm harder, so that he was in even more pain than before. "I said, do you understand?"

"Yes!" he gasped, "Yes, I get it!"

I released him, and turned back to my locker, closing and locking it. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and found myself staring into the eyes of a girl around my age, grinning at me.

"Can I help you?" I asked politely. The girl had stunning, curly, black hair, middle-eastern features and gorgeous, pitch-black eyes.

"Jase has never been embarrassed like that before. Nobody has had the guts to stand up to him. He's gotten away with taking girls dignities for too long." The girl said. "My name is Tali. Tali David."

"How's he gotten away with it for so long then?" I asked indignantly.

"Anyone he's taken advantage of has been too ashamed to speak of it. But you've changed that. You're fighting is impressive. Are you taking any martial arts classes…?" she trailed off, watiting for me to supply my name.

"My name's Casey Grace. Yeah, I am. Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, and a few others. Are you?" I replied, blushing at her compliment.

"Yes. I fight too. We should try fighting each other," she suggested with a daring look in her eye.

"Are you sure you can handle it?" I asked slyly.

"You're on," she told me gamely.

And just like that I got my first friend in eight years.


End file.
